Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Generally, by the time you reach my age, you should have some idea of how to eat the majority of things available at your local restaurants. As a kid you learn pretty quickly that you should peel bananas & oranges before eating* and not eat the bones that are part of your chicken, or ribs, or T-bone steak. Cantaloupe and watermelon rinds aren't recommended consumption, either.

I, personally, don't expect a waiter to give me eating tips (unless I ask first). The only time one did was when Mrs. Grumpy dragged me to a fondue restaurant, and the waiter gave us a spiel on the proper ways to order and combine which foods with which fondue. We got up and left when he reached the 10 minute mark and showed no signs of stopping. I was afraid he was going to start a Powerpoint show.

*Think about it- SOMEWHERE in human history there was a poor sucker who tried to eat an unpeeled banana, and so all of us today have benefited from what they learned. I think their contribution to humanity is up there with the electric light, but you don't see a town named "Unknown Person Who Ate An Unpeeled Banana, New Jersey" do you?

My great-something grandmother emigrated from Slovakia to the US as a young woman. On the train from New York to Chicago, she got a box lunch. The lunch contained a banana, which she had never seen before, as bananas were not common food for Slovakian farmers in the late 1800s.

I work in a law office and just printed this out for one of the attys because I thought he'd think it was funny. He did at first, then said there may actually be a case there, based on case law from a case in 1928 that still holds. Stranger things have happened!

This reminded me of the time when I was a kid that my mom learned not to put the leftover leaves down a garbage disposal. Dad took the disposal apart, and it took hours to fix. The leaves didn't grind up; they separated into strings. What a nightmare. If that happened in the guy's gut, no wonder he had a stomach ache.

I've never eaten an artichoke (unless artichoke hearts on pizza count), so I wouldn't know how to eat it either. I do think I'd have stopped when I discovered the leaves were sharp and not tasty. No clean-plate club here...

Well if HE has a case think of the case a friend of my Mom's would have had. She tried using a Feminine Protection product for the first time and didn't know to remove the cardboard. Speaking of anguish.

So, from now on, each artichoke will come with an instruction sheet tucked in between the leaves, much like those annoying PI and other OMG WARNING (the industry term for it has escaped my brain) sheets.

My understanding was that somewhere along the line we learned about eating bananas from watching monkeys eating them.

As for artichokes, I wouldn't eat them, but that's me. Whatever happened, though, to asking a question if you don't know how to do something? If he didn't know how to eat it, why the blazes didn't he ask?

The article doesn't mention whether or not he actually asked the waiter on how to eat them?

Surely, if it's a vegetable you've never seen or heard of before AND your first bite seems to indicate that you're doing something wrong you would DO something (even excuse yourself, so to the bathroom and google on the Blackberry?), wouldn't you?

Regarding bananas: I took the tour of Ellis Island before it was renovated, and they took us through the rooms that were left just as they were when the immigration people cleared out of there, way back when. In the old dining room, the guide told us that the new immigrants were at once impressed, disgusted, and confused by their food. Why? They were impressed with the white bread, which in Europe only really rich people ate, but was cheap here because of the bleaching process that was unknown overseas; they were disgusted with the corn, which in Europe was considered animal fodder; and they were confused by the bananas, which in Europe they had never seen, and had no idea how to eat. He said they'd had to have a staffer stand up on a chair every morning in front of the immigrants and demonstrate the right way to eat a banana.

And I was told a story once by a friend from Russia. He lived near Odessa, which was where the "more equal than others" people vacationed. One time a ship came from Nicaragua loaded with bananas, bound for Odessa, but was barred from docking there because the city was under quarantine from a cholera outbreak, so they docked at his city instead and sold the bananas for whatever they could get for them. His brother bought a bunch and gave him one. Later on he asked how it was, and my friend said, "It was terrible. I don't understand what these rich people see in them." His brother asked "Well, did you leave it in a warm place until it turned yellow?" My friend said "Uhm, no, should I have?"

Yet again an old post but given the number of medical people who read this blog, I can't be the only person to wonder how the heck he ended up getting "exploratory surgery" out of severe abdominal pain and I'd guess it did not come out of the ER visit but seriously? I'm going to assume, especially given the commenter who mentioned the guy who ate banana and orange peels, with time, and likely not even that much time, understanding myself how the GI tract works, he'd likely have passed it. Painfully the whole way, I'm sure but was he damaged by the artichoke or needless surgery? I mean I could always be wrong but I mean if he had a bowel obstruction from it then the surgery wouldn't have been exploratory and many a bowel obstruction or ileus is not operated on anyway. I shouldn't even question this insanity but from my perspective here, I have chronic intestinal pseudo obstruction and basically intestinal failure and one severely screwed up GI tract to the point that I'm permanently NPO. I've obstructed on far more minor foods, had an ileus from a failed tube feeding attempt but obviously I'm not normal. And with all that said I laugh at his complaints for the most part because I know it can't be that freaking bad unless of course he already had some serious GI issues (but if so obviously his case is an even bigger pile of BS. I think I'm suing Frito-Lay for a since passed Frito induced ileus when I just couldn't resist or how about that tube feed formula company? Because clearly Fritos and tube feeds are dangerous!) Oy vey. And maybe I'd have never ended up nearly starving to death more than once if only I was an artichoking idiot doctor who can force people into going way more than extra mile for me? And I guess, should some serious miracle ever allow me to eat again, no artichokes!

Welcome to my whining!

This blog is entirely for entertainment purposes. All posts about patients may be fictional, or be my experience, or were submitted by a reader, or any combination of the above. Factual statements may or may not be accurate.

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